We all knew this day would come eventually, but did anyone know it was coming so soon? In the final seconds of last week's episode of Scandal, Olivia Pope officially confirmed to the press that she and Fitz are having an affair, and as you can imagine, the Shondaland version of the US absolutely lost its mind. And it's not just the media circus and the wrath of Mellie that the revelation has forced them to deal with. Inadvertently, the Olivia/Fitz relationship reveal set off a ripple effect of unfortunate events, and Olivia probably just needs to go ahead and hire herself to handle it.
At first, it was just the press, hounding Pope and Associates for information on Olivia... and leaving Quinn, Huck, and Jake with a phone that was basically ringing off the hook. Next? An intruder found his way into the White House as Mellie and Fitz are doing an interview, and as you can imagine, Mellie uses the opportunity to get Liz and Cyrus to draw up a very hefty agreement of things that she'd like to have from Fitz in order for her to cooperate with this whole divorce thing.
So what does she want? A low-key relationship with no public appearances, among other ridiculous things. As you can imagine, Cyrus comes back to Fitz and Olivia with a long, Mellie-curated list for what will happen post-divorce, including a clause that says Olivia and Fitz cannot get married while he's in office. Fitz is totally against it, but Olivia? She thinks it'd be easiest if they just played along... until Cyrus comes back again asking for one simple thing: Mellie and Fitz pretend to get back together, and Olivia fades into the background for the rest of his presidency.
And the first chance Mellie gets to talk to Olivia, she fills her in on the downsides of being FLOTUS, like giving up all of her personal goals and dreams to put his first. And the way she describes it, I suddenly wants to give Michelle Obama a hug, because it sounds like the worst. Will this make Olivia change her mind? It depends on how much she loves Fitz... compared to how much she loves her job. It's unfair, but it's how it works.
Images: John Fleenor/ABC, Giphy
Get Even More From Bustle — Sign Up For The Newsletter
From hair trends to relationship advice, our daily newsletter has everything you need to sound like a person who’s on TikTok, even if you aren’t.
More like this
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7o8HSraOeZpOkunCt0a2gnKSVqHxyfZRyaXFln6G2t7XAZp2irKqoeqKyxZqgq2WXpLK0ec%2BumaWhk2K8r3nSnJinnJGheq6xy6WgnmWYlsBuv86mnGarlae2sMHSZpuepZGjsbQ%3D